UN Reprimand France over Intersex Genital Mutilations - UK up next

Intersex Human Righs Defenders, 57th Session UN
Committee against Torture (CAT):Vincent Guillot (France, IGM survivor), Daniela
Truffer (StopIGM.org, IGM survivor), Markus Bauer
(StopIGM.org). To their right in front of her laptop, with back to the camera
Sapana Pradhan-Malla (Nepal, CAT member), above her left, all
in the back in the center of the glass wall Jens Modvig
(Denmark, CAT chairperson and Co-Rapporteur for France), who both expertly
questioned the French delegation on IGM practices – THANK
YOU!!

1. Committee against Torture reprimands France for IGM Practices

The Committee once more unmistakably denounced IGM practices as
serious crimes clearly in breach of the Convention against Torture and
constituting at least Inhuman Treatment, referring to art. 2,
12, 14, 16 of the Convention.

StopIGM.org particularly appreciates that the Committee specifically obliged
France to "take the necessary legislative, administrative and other
measures to guarantee the respect for the physical integrity and autonomy of
intersex persons", and "to undertake measures to
ensure redress for victims, including adequate compensation".

And to "ensure access to psychosocial counselling
and support for persons concerned, their parents and care givers
free of charge" and
"to investigate cases of medical or surgical treatments of intersex
persons without their informed consent".

This marks the 11th time that a UN Treaty Body condemns IGM
practices and reprimands a Government for tolerating and/or supporting
these serious human rights violations.

States as contracting parties to the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, the Convention against Torture and other applicable
Covenants including CCPR and CRPD can no longer feign ignorance of the
illegal nature of IGM practices, but now must take all
appropriate measures including legislation to eliminate them, and to
guarantee access to effective redress and justice for all IGM
survivors!

The international intersex human rights NGO
StopIGM.org demands the prohibition of forced genital
surgeries on children and adolescents with Variations of Sex Anatomy and "Human
Rights for Hermaphrodites too!"

Persons concerned shall later decide themselves, if they want
surgeries or not, and if yes, which.

Since 1950, IGM has been practised systematically and on an
industrial scale allover the “developed world”, with all
typical IGM forms still practised today. Parents and children are
misinformed, kept in the dark, sworn to secrecy, kept isolated and denied
appropriate support.

For more than 20 years, survivors have criticised IGM
practices as harmful and traumatising, as a fundamental human rights
violation, as a form of genital mutilation and child sexual
abuse, as torture or ill-treatment, and called for
legislation to end it and to ensure
remedies.

Since February 2015, the
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has repeatedly
criticised unnecessary intersex treatments as a Harmful
Practice and thus comparable to Female Genital
Mutilation, and has so far reprimanded
Switzerland,
Chile,
France and
Ireland for failing to adopt necessary legislation to protect intersex
children's right to bodily integrity and to ensure equal
access to remedies and justice for victims.

"Human Rights For Hermaphrodites Too!"

StopIGM.org is an international human rights NGO of survivors and allies fighting Intersex Genital Mutilations (IGM) in children's clinics, and for the right to physical integrity and self determination for all children born with 'atypical genitalia', or Variations of Sex Anatomy. IGM Practices are a serious human rights violation and MUST STOP.